High Heels Are Murder (18 page)

“They might see you, but they won’t know you,” Josie said. “You look like a Dynel Medusa.”

“That’s better than a flat-chested Dolly Parton,” Alyce said.

Josie’s flossy blond wig trailed to the seat of her skintight red velvet jeans. “Maybe I should have gone for Dolly’s fake chest instead of her fake hair,” Josie said. “But none of my blouses would fit if I had a big chest. At least the wig will keep me warm. This halter top is breezy even when I’m wearing a winter coat.”

“Don’t complain about the cold to me. Dressing like white trash was your idea,” Alyce said.

“This assignment is using up my disguises,” Josie said. “And, excuse me, but is that your idea of trashy?”

Alyce was wearing her gardening jeans, old loafers and a T-shirt that said,
GO TO BED WITH SOMEONE NEW EVERY NIGHT—READ A GOOD BOOK
. She couldn’t look trashy if she wanted.

“I tried,” Alyce said. The brown wig bobbed and wiggled.

“I succeeded,” Josie said. “What does that say about me?”

“Speaking of trashy, here she comes,” Alyce said.

Cheryl came out in a splendid camel coat. “How does she get by wearing that color with a baby?” Alyce asked. “I’d be covered in spit-up.”

“She doesn’t deserve a child as good as Ben,” Josie said.

“Let’s go,” Alyce said, and started up her car.

Cheryl dropped the little boy at the sitter’s house, then turned onto the highway. Alyce stayed several car lengths behind, in back of a pickup truck loaded with bedroom furniture.

“Cheryl missed the Earth City turn-off,” Josie said. “I hope we’re not going to the Royal Duchess again.”

The pickup hit a pothole and a mattress bounced out. Alyce deftly swerved around it. Her wig did the wave. “Maybe Cheryl isn’t gambling today,” she said.

“Maybe this is my real hair,” Josie said, running her fingers through the limp blond strands. “Nice driving, by the way.”

“Thanks. You need a tattoo to go with that hair,” Alyce said.

“I’ve got one. A barbed wire tat around my bicep.”

“Tell me you’re joking,” Alyce said.

“It’s henna,” Josie said. “It will come off.”

“It took me a week to remove the henna tattoo when we went to the islands,” Alyce said. “I almost scrubbed my arm off.”

“I’ll wear long sleeves until it comes off,” Josie said.

“What if it’s not off by the time you have your date with Josh?” Alyce said.

“He’ll like it.” Josie smiled, her thoughts as trashy as her wig.

“Cheryl’s turning off at the Riverfront,” Alyce said.

“Then she’s going to the riverboat casinos on the St. Louis side of the Mississippi,” Josie said. “She’s playing in Missouri today.”

The casinos were anchored near the pure stainless-steel sweep of the Arch. The Mississippi churned under them, brown and powerful.

Alyce’s SUV bumped along the old cobblestone streets, rattling their teeth and making Alyce’s wig do the hula. They followed Cheryl’s SUV into the parking lot for the Lucky Lou paddle-wheel casino.

The Lucky Lou looked like it was made out of cardboard. Bright colors and waving flags added forced gaiety.

“Mark Twain would weep,” Alyce said. “The Lucky
Lou is more like a cheap carnival ride than a riverboat. It can’t even take you on a cruise. It’s not a real boat.”

“It will take you for a ride,” Josie said. “I wouldn’t want to cruise this river in a boat as flimsy as the Lucky Lou. Look at the way that water moves. It’s almost muscular.”

“I see the Mississippi played by Bruce Willis,” Alyce said.

“But with more hair,” Josie said.

“Please,” Alyce said. “For five whole minutes, I forgot about this wig.”

Cheryl walked briskly toward the riverboat ramp.

“She didn’t even look around,” Josie said. “She knows I busted her. Why isn’t she watching for me?”

“She doesn’t care,” Alyce said. “She feels invincible. She’s blinded by her addiction and her arrogance.”

“Shhh, we’re closing in,” Josie whispered. “Cheryl will hear us.”

“She wouldn’t hear U2 live and in person,” Alyce said. “She only hears the siren song of the slots.”

Cheryl went through the casino like a woman in a drug dream, oblivious to anyone else. Crowds parted around her, men stared, but Cheryl never noticed. Josie and Alyce filled out their session cards, then followed Cheryl.

“These casinos are all starting to look alike,” Alyce said.

“This one has the
Cocktail
bartenders,” Josie said.

At the neon-lit bar, Tom Cruise look-alikes juggled bottles and flipped streams of colored liquor, while customers applauded. Josie and Alyce gaped like a couple of hicks at a fair.

“Do you think liquor evaporates when you toss it around like that?” Alyce asked.

“Not as fast as Cheryl evaporates,” Josie said. “Where did she go?”

“Where do you think?” Alyce said. “Does she have a magnet in her coat or what?” They tore themselves away from the leaping liquid and found Cheryl sitting at the ten-dollar slots.

“We won’t be here long, thanks to Missouri’s two-hour
sessions,” Josie said. “She’ll be out of money by noon.”

But this was Cheryl’s lucky day. The Lucky Lou slots rained dollars on her. Bells rang, coins jingled, lights flashed and a small crowd gathered around Cheryl’s slot machine. She ignored everyone and kept feeding it cash. It showered more money on her.

“How much has she won so far?” Alyce said.

“Nearly a thousand dollars. I can’t believe it’s one o’clock,” Josie said. “The only thing duller than watching Cheryl lose is seeing her win. She doesn’t even smile.”

“She’s afraid she’ll lose the money,” Alyce said.

Cheryl’s good luck took a couple of bad hits between two and three o’clock, but at three ten, she won another thousand dollars. At three thirty, Cheryl was still playing. She got out her cell phone and made a call with one hand while playing her machine with the other. She wouldn’t break her winning streak even to speed-dial a phone.

“Come on, let’s go,” Josie said.

“Where?” Alyce said. “You don’t know who she called.”

“Yes, I do,” Josie said. “Cheryl is talking someone into picking up Ben. Bonnie the babysitter said Cheryl called about three thirty if she got stuck in a meeting. She’s meeting major money today. She won’t leave. Let’s head for the sitter’s. I want to see Ben’s rescuer.”

Josie and Alyce were lucky, too. No pickup trucks lost mattresses on the highway. Even the usual traffic slowdown near Brentwood didn’t happen.

They were parked on Bonnie’s street at 3:54. At 3:57, a dark green SUV pulled into the babysitter’s drive. A caramel blonde who looked like a carbon copy of Cheryl got out. She was back five minutes later, carrying a chubby boy in blue OshKosh rompers.

“That’s Ben,” Josie said. “I’d recognize those fat red cheeks anywhere.”

The child squealed in delight. “Poor little guy,” Josie said. “Cheryl is one cold woman to leave him for a slot machine.”

The caramel blonde hugged Ben, then strapped him into his seat in her SUV. Josie counted two more small heads in the vehicle.

“Think those are her kids?” Josie said.

“Definitely,” Alyce said. “She’s got
MOM
written all over her.”

Josie and Alyce followed the caramel blonde to a house almost exactly like Cheryl’s, right down to the Pella windows and white pillars. The family name was painted on the mailbox in scrolled letters.
THE CHRISTIE’S
it said.

“I hate misplaced apostrophes,” Alyce said. “The Christie’s what?”

“House,” Josie said. “I think we’ve found Fiona. According to Zinnia, she’s one of the women customers who visited Mel. How do you think Cheryl explains to her husband that their son is at another woman’s house?”

“She probably says Ben has a play date,” Alyce said. “It’s chic. Also important for the child’s socialization. Play dates are a big deal in the upper-crust burbs. Even at age two, your child has to play with the right people, little future professionals who will grow up and advance your son’s career.”

Alyce drove by the Christies’ house, turned around in a circle at the end of the street, and drove back. Fiona was holding a baby younger than Ben. A slightly older child was hanging on to her legs. She was carrying and cajoling the three children inside the home.

“Keep on driving. I think we can call it a day,” Josie said. “We know what Fiona will be doing for the next few hours.”

“How long do you think Cheryl will stay at the Lucky Lou?” Alyce said.

“Until she loses all her money,” Josie said.

“How long will she keep this up without her family finding out?” Alyce said.

“Until she bankrupts them,” Josie said.

“How much trouble do you think she’s in?” Alyce asked.

“A lot,” Josie said. “We just don’t know what it is.”

“Are we going to do this tomorrow?” Alyce said.

“If Mrs. Mueller is still paying me. We learn something different every day.”

“We learn something more depressing every day. Josie, tomorrow is the last time I’ll watch Cheryl. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to see any more of Cheryl’s messed-up life.”

“I can’t stop,” Josie said. “It’s like some awful reality TV show.”

“I’m voting no after tomorrow,” Alyce said. “And I refuse to wear this Clarabell the Clown wig again.” The curly wig looked like a can of worms.

“You can be yourself,” Josie said. “She won’t recognize you. Just come with me for one more day. I promise it will be worth your time.”

All the traffic that they missed on the ride to the babysitter’s house was waiting for Josie on the way home. It was nearly five before she turned onto her street. Stan came running out with a small cardboard box while she parked her car.

Oh, no, Josie thought. Please don’t give me a gift, Stan. I don’t want to have to give it back.

“UPS brought this over yesterday when no one was at your house. I wanted to give it to you,” Stan said.

Josie read the label and her heart sank. It was for Jane. Her mother was ordering things from the Home Shopping Network again.

Stan saw the look on her face. “I should have brought it over sooner, shouldn’t I?”

“No, Stan. It’s nothing you did. Thank you for being a good neighbor.”

Poor Mom, Josie thought. Stress could make Jane slip back into her old shopping addiction. Josie would have to find some way to ask her mother. She pulled off the Dolly Parton wig her mother found so embarrassing and shoved it in a shopping bag. No point in adding to Jane’s pressures.

Before Josie could unlock her door, she was ambushed by a triumphant Mrs. Mueller.

“Well, you were wrong again,” Mrs. M said. “My nephew George checked that license plate for you. It belongs to the pastor of the Hillwood Heights Evangelical
Church, the Reverend Zebediah Smithson. It’s plain to me that my Cheryl was doing nothing wrong if she was in the company of a church pastor.”

“Uh,” Josie said. She was too stunned to reply. The church pastor was forking over money to watch movies in a no-tell motel? Where did a man of the cloth get that kind of cash—from the collection plate?

“I assume you’ve found nothing useful today, either?” Mrs. Mueller’s voice was imperious, branding Josie a failure before she ever answered.

“Cheryl was at the Lucky Lou downtown,” Josie said.

“I was hoping you could find out something more helpful than that,” Mrs. Mueller said.

“Me, too,” Josie said.

She walked into her home and felt the approaching thunder of trouble. Something was off. The air was thick with tension.

“I’ve fixed chicken and dumplings for dinner,” her mother said. Jane was nervous, trembly, on the verge of tears. She kept wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, when they were perfectly clean.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Josie said.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jane said.

“UPS left a package for you with Stan,” Josie said.

“It was just a little thing,” Jane said. “A kitchen gadget. Only nine ninety-nine.”

“Mom,” Josie said. “You promised. No more Home Shopping Network.”

“I’ll make an extra appointment with my counselor,” Jane said. “I’m sorry, Josie. I’ve let you down.” She started crying.

“GBH,” Josie said, and gathered her sobbing mother into her arms. “You’ve never let me down, Mom. You’ve always been there when I needed you. I won’t let you down with Mrs. Mueller.”

“She says you’re not getting anywhere,” Jane said.

“I’ve already found out more than she wanted to know,” Josie said. “Don’t you worry, Mom, you’ll get those committees or I’ll burn a pile of dog doo ten feet high in her yard.”

Jane laughed and blew her nose. “Wash up, dear. I’ll get your dinner.”

“Where’s Amelia?”

“In her room,” Jane said.

Not a good sign. Her daughter was moping, too. She’d spent the day at her best friend Emma’s house, and that usually put her in a good mood. But Amelia seemed unnaturally subdued tonight. Her straight hair looked limp and her face was pale.

“What’s the matter?” Josie said.

“Nothing,” Amelia said.

Josie had learned to read the nothings. A school nothing had a higher pitch to it. This was a personal nothing. It was a flatter sound. “What happened at Emma’s?”

Amelia looked surprised. “How did you know?”

“I’m your mother,” Josie said. Might as well maintain her omniscience as long as she could.

“Zoe—” Amelia said and stopped.

Josie struggled to tamp down her temper. What now? she wondered. Was the precocious Zoe wearing high heels and a bustier? Smoking cigars? Buying her own car?

“Zoe’s sister OD’d,” Amelia said.

“She’s dead from drugs?” Josie said. She felt like someone had punched her in the gut. “Her sister’s sixteen, right?”

Amelia nodded. Two tears slid down her cheeks. “I knew her, Mom. Celine was sweet. She was one of the big kids who said hi to me and didn’t treat me like a baby. Celine died.”

“What happened?” Josie said.

“Gemma, she’s in our class, was at Emma’s house, too. She said Celine and her boyfriend were at this club on Washington Avenue and they scored some coke in the alley. It was extra strong or something. Celine started shaking. She fell and hit her head on the bricks in the alley and an ambulance took her away.